The thirty per cent is not in the statute
Thirty per cent is the answer heard most often when people ask how much of a salary can be attached. Open the provision that actually governs and the figure is not there, because the law does not protect a proportion at all.
Phenhnung Thabthimthong
Partner · YACT Association
Published 6 August 2026 · Updated 14 August 2026
The protection is an amount, not a proportion
Section 302 of the Civil Procedure Code lists the money not subject to execution item by item. Subsection (3), covering the wages of private-sector employees, protects a combined amount of not more than twenty thousand baht a month, or such amount as the execution officer thinks fit. Subsection (4) protects a gratuity or severance up to three hundred thousand baht. The figures in the statute are therefore ceilings on the protected sum, not percentages of a salary.
Government pay is exempt without a ceiling
Subsection (2) stands apart: the salary, wages, pension, gratuity, allowance or similar income of civil servants, officials or employees in government units, together with welfare payments, pensions or gratuities paid by a government unit to their spouses or surviving relatives. No figure is attached to it at all, which sets it plainly apart from subsection (3) for private employees.
The protection travels with the money
Judgment 741/2543 concerned the salary and gratuity of a civil servant which the official receiver had attached in bankruptcy and which another creditor then sought to seize. The Court held that since the money had not been mixed with other funds beyond identification, it remained salary and gratuity and could not be taken in satisfaction of the debt. Its being held by the receiver did not transform it into something outside the protection.
But the title of the office does not decide it
Judgment 2092/2545 runs the other way. The debtor held municipal office and received a monthly allowance and an allowance of office. The Court found that these were paid as a monthly lump computed from the municipality's actual revenue in the previous budget year and so were variable, unlike the fixed salary of a career official. Although the office was a political one, the payments did not fall within the meaning of salary, and could be attached.
The principle underneath both
Read together, both rest on one principle: the protection attaches to the character of the money rather than to the label on it. In the first, money that appeared to have changed hands and character kept its protection; in the second, a person who appeared protected did not. The Court in 2092/2545 explained the purpose as protecting those who live on a fixed and certain regular income — a test that can actually be applied, unlike looking at the office held.
What to do about the amount fixed
The second paragraph of section 302 requires the execution officer, when fixing an amount under (1), (3) or (4), to have regard to the debtor's family circumstances and the number of ascendants and descendants in their care, and for (1) and (3) to fix it at not less than the lowest and not more than the highest civil-service salary rate current at the time. The third paragraph allows anyone dissatisfied to apply to the court within fifteen days of learning of it, and the fourth allows a fresh determination where the debtor's circumstances of living have changed.
AUTHORITY
The judgments this rests on
Supreme Court judgment 741/2543
A civil servant's salary and gratuity attached by the official receiver remained salary and gratuity outside execution, not having been mixed with other funds beyond identification; the attachment did not transform them out of the protection.
Supreme Court judgment 2092/2545
A municipal officeholder's monthly and office allowances, paid as a lump computed from the municipality's actual revenue and therefore variable, did not fall within the meaning of a civil servant's salary, and could be executed against notwithstanding that the office was political.
QUESTIONS
Questions this raises
Why do the older judgments cite section 286 rather than 302?
The provision on money outside execution formerly sat at section 286 and moved to section 302 when the execution part of the Code was revised. Judgments laying down the principle before that cite the old number, as do a great many summaries still. The safer course is to compare the wording of the provision in force rather than to rely on a section number found in a summary.
If the salary exceeds twenty thousand, is all the excess taken?
Section 302(3) protects up to twenty thousand baht a month or such amount as the execution officer thinks fit, which allows a higher figure, and the second paragraph directs the officer to consider the debtor's family circumstances and dependants within a range set by the lowest and highest civil-service salary rates. What is actually taken is therefore open to argument on the facts of the particular household.
LAW
The legislation
- Civil Procedure Code, section 302
ENQUIRIES
